U.S. officials say a Colombian man who was living in Quebec has been extradited and arraigned in connection with the case of a pregnant Mexican woman who died while trying to cross a frigid river after illegally entering the United States in 2023.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the northern District of New York has charged Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar, 36, with three smuggling-related counts in relation to the death of Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores.
The body of 33-year-old Vasquez-Flores was found in the Great Chazy River near Champlain, N.Y., on Dec. 14, 2023, two days after her husband alerted a border patrol agent that she had not emerged from the woods on the American side of the border.
In a news release, U.S. attorney Carla Freedman said the tragedy highlights the dangers of illegal migration and how smugglers put people in danger for profit.
“By vigorously prosecuting human smuggling networks, we are deterring and reducing the number of dangerous crossings like the one that took the lives of this young woman and her unborn child,” she said.
American authorities allege that Uribe-Tobar advertised his services on TikTok under a pseudonym and charged the woman and her husband US$2,500 to guide her by electronic message as she attempted to cross the border alone on foot. They allege Vasquez-Flores was told she would be able to wade across the river.
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Documents filed by U.S. officials in Quebec Superior Court allege that her husband, Miguel Mojarro-Magna, had contacted the TikTok account and was told the journey to the United States could take up to three hours.
Uribe-Tobar pleaded not guilty on Thursday to federal charges of alien smuggling and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling and was detained pending a trial. None of the allegations have been proven in court, and his federal public defender declined comment to The Associated Press.
Message exchanges provided in U.S. court filings show Uribe-Tobar allegedly texted Vasquez-Flores’s husband on the evening of Dec. 11, 2023, to say his wife was crossing the river. “I’m very nervous,” the husband texted in return.
Just after 7 p.m., the husband received a reply saying, “Bro, hello, I think she got wet or turned off her cellphone.”
The message exchanges allegedly continued, and the husband alerted authorities to his wife’s disappearance the next day.
Uribe-Tobar was arrested in late December 2023 in St-Hyacinthe, Que. A Quebec Superior Court judge ordered his committal for extradition in May, according to the federal Justice Department, after which the case proceeded through a ministerial phase that required the justice minister to approve the surrender.
According to the U.S. attorney’s office, the charges against Uribe-Tobar carry a minimum term of three years and a maximum of life in prison.
